Terrorist Factory

"The criminal engineering of making an unmaking of a terrorist is nothing new, but for me it is new. I traveled to Kudaku to meet the prosecution witnesses in Madani case. Prabhakar, Yoganand and Rafeeq are the three witnesses who gave the testimony that they have seen Madani in the place with Naseer. Among the three, Yoganand and Prabhakar are BJP activists. I took the interview of K K Yoganand and Rafeeq. Both of them disclosed that they have seen Madani only in Television. Yoganand saw him in person for the first time when Madani was brought to Kodaku for staging the whole drama of 'evidence collection..", writes Shahina.

For more, see the report in Tehelka: Why is this man still in Prison?

Thanks Shahina for taking this up and taking the trouble to talk to the witnesses. The Kerala media and the public -- Hindus, Christians and Muslims alike, except some who did not mind getting termed "fundamentalists" -- seemed to take Madani's Kudaku visit for granted. And there were movies like Anwar that gave a second judgment on Coimbatore blasts.

Good that you are with Tehelka, you are here to tell us these stories:-)

Notes From a Diary, A Note of Thanks

I am happy to share the news that I have been selected for Sangam House writer's residency programme this year. (From the website: "Every winter the Sangam House invites approximately twenty writers to live and work at an arts institution in southern India. Each year, half the invited writers come from the South Asian subcontinent and half from other countries around the world. Sangam House is open to writers in all languages and disciplines - we welcome fiction and non-fiction writers, poets, translators, playwrights and screen-writers..")

I did not have any work published in print, so it was a compilation of some posts published on this diary that I submitted as a writing sample. This gives us a reason to celebrate on this diary, and adds some pressure on me to keep making quality posts.

I am thankful to those who have been reading my diary. The ardent followers as well as occasional visitors. People who have connected with me on social networking sites and those who prefered to remain private readers. And those who augment the posts with their comments -- the named and the anonymous.

As a token of thanks to my readers, I have touched up the notes that were compiled for Sangam House submission and made it look like a book (Titled "Notes From a Diary". Back cover shown here). Thanks to Bena who helped with editing. It is free (and free to share), so those who'd like a pdf version please mail me at my gmail id sudeep dot ks. You could also read it here as a google document.